Iranian Spies Targeting Journalists and Dissidents in London

The Guardian newspaper published a report indicating that the Director of the Fifth Division in the Military Intelligence Service MI5, Ken McCallum, revealed the existence of Iranian attempts to kill and kidnap opponents of its regime residing in Britain.

McCallum stated that the number of attempts in 2021 reached 10 attempts.

He emphasized that Iran’s attempts to target journalists and dissidents in Britain have increased since January as its regime feels increasing pressure.

On November 11, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Iranian deputy ambassador and asked him to clarify allegations of death sentences against two Iranian journalists working from London due to the reports they published about the ongoing protests in Iran.

The TV channel Iran International took more precautions after British police told it at the beginning of the week that there were credible threats against its journalists.

Iran International, accused by the Iranian government of being funded by Saudi Arabia to incite the Iranian street, announced in an official statement that two journalists working for it had received a notification on the matter from British local authorities.

 

Risking Their Lives

In an interview with Al-Estiklal, the political activist Asmaa Lmoudan said: “Many foreign journalists and opponents seek refuge and protection in the UK when their lives are endangered in their home countries. However, the intelligence services, mainly the Iranian ones, do not hesitate to target them even outside the borders of its sovereignty, infringing on the sovereignty of major countries such as the United Kingdom.”

Aliasghar Ramezanpour, an Iranian journalist based in the United Kingdom whose life is exposed to danger, was told by the British police that agents of the Iranian regime were following him and that his life was on the line, according to a report by the British newspaper The Times.

Ramezanpour kept his cool. This is not the first time that the life of a London-based journalist has been endangered by his work. Still, it is the first time that such a threat has been reported directly by specialized counter-terrorism officers who deal with national security issues in cooperation with the Fifth Division of the Military Intelligence.

The Iranian journalist said: “They [Iranian agents] are saying that if you don’t stop what you are doing, we will come to you; that’s the message.”

He emphasized that the only thing they are looking for is to prevent journalists from covering the story. Yet, with the current situation, with the internet and social networks being disrupted in Iran, the only outlet people have is the media.

Ramezanpour, 61, and a number of other British journalists working for the Persian-language Iran International Television Station, based in Chiswick, west London, recently received details of a credible and imminent threat to his life after the alleged dispatch of assassination squads from Iran to liquidate opponents in British territory.

The Daily Telegraph reported that a “hostile Iranian surveillance team” was spotted outside the homes and offices of the channel’s top journalists.

 

Diplomatic Storm

Iranian targeting of journalists in the UK caused a diplomatic storm, as British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly summoned Iran’s top diplomat to Whitehall on November 11 to warn that the UK would not tolerate threats to life and intimidation of any kind towards journalists or any individual who lives in the United Kingdom.

In addition, these tensions shed light on how the Iranian regime’s claws in disguise have infiltrated Britain within Islamic centers in London and elsewhere, according to prominent Britons-Iranians.

The Sunday Times has found that hundreds of journalists, political activists, and those speaking out against the Iranian regime from Britain have received letters from counter-terror police in recent months warning them not to lure them back to Iran and sentence them to death.

Metropolitan Police contacted British-Iranian journalist Potkin Azarmehr in London in May, giving him a message advising Iranians living in the UK on how to “keep themselves safe.” They urged him to be careful about emails, phone calls, or text messages and beware of requests to participate in activities from strangers.

Azarmehr said counter-terrorism police told him that Iran had “changed its modus operandi” and was now likely to employ criminals abroad to carry out attacks rather than sending agents from Iran. He added that there are not necessarily trained agents, but professional killers may get paid to carry out assassinations.

“I was told it could be as simple as standing at a Tube station and somebody pushes you in front of a train. Or it could be a manufactured road rage incident. These could be people paid by the Iranian state,” Azarmehr continued.

 

Widespread Threat

Iran has a long history of brutal operations aiming to eliminate dissidents in Europe. The Kurdish opposition leader Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, former Iranian Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar, and opposition figure Fereydoun Farrokhzad are well-known victims of Iran’s terror machine.

According to a German report, European intelligence services recently monitored Iran sending terrorist and assassination squads to the European continent to liquidate opponents of the mullahs’ regime, which will push its countries to disengage from the nuclear agreement.

The report stressed that the US Central Intelligence Agency monitored, between 1979 and 1994, that Iran carried out 60 complete assassination attempts against opponents of the regime, many of which took place in Europe.

The newspaper asked: “Does Iran still follow the same methods?” The answer was that anxiety fills European capitals and reached the Chancellery in Berlin after it was found that Iran had recently sent death squads and assassinations to the continent to assassinate opponents.

It continued saying that the intelligence services are working on the premise that sending these teams is only the beginning and that Tehran threatens Europe with a new wave of terrorism.

“If the Iranian regime continues to use this method, it will be very difficult for Europe to comply with the nuclear agreement,” the newspaper quoted an unidentified senior German official as saying.